stripping bottom paint

Byram

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When I bought my sportsman last fall I noticed sections of the hull bottom paint were thick enough to remove with a putty knife. Pettit makes a stripper mentioning bottom paint removal with a cost of $70 / gal. Has anyone tried the myriad strippers at Home Depot for half the cost. They all say removes paint blah blah but ablative is not mentioned. Dont get me wrong, I will purchase the Pettit but wondering if the others will do the job.. ??
 

seasick

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The strippers at home depot don't work well in my experience. I have tried a few. ( Neither does oven cleaner:))
The Pettit stripper is new, just released in February. I have no feedback yet but on their website, they mention it is intended for smaller hulls like a 15 foot skiff. What the heck does that mean? It won't work on a 25 footer? I suspect that the mention of smaller hulls is due to the fact that it may need to be applied several times to work and that will be time consuming and expensive since a lot of remover will be needed.

Si it's either sanding and scrapping or blasting. The latest method is what is called 'dustless' blasting which uses water and a fine ground glass abrasive. I am looking at different options since I am getting too old and achy to crawl under my boat(s).
 

SkunkBoat

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When I did my transom on my V20 I had good results with the orange paint stripper (citrigel?)from Home Depot and an Anvil brand "Edge Scraper" scraping tool (excellent tool)

Gel worked best when it could sit for a while but did't dryout in the sun. Once it dries its done.
This took the bulk of 20 years of hard paint under ablative paint off without any dust. Then sanded lightly to clean gelcoat.

That said, If I needed to do a full hull I would pay somebody else to blast it and save MY labor for prep/patching/barrier coat/painting



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Summertop511

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Very powerful pressure washer. Then sand it. In the process now.
 

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Triton2300

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Had my bottom soda blasted this winter. 23 Triton 2002 had twenty plus hard coats. Stripped the bottom, applied barrier coat then one coat of hard coat. Bottom is smooth. Looks new. It it needs any bottom paint I will apply ablative bottom paint. Boat is dry stacked now. First run was last week and it ran 3 miles per hour faster with 70 more gallons of fuel Aboard. Will know more when it gets lighter.